Option 506,738
by BlondeQ
Summary: What might have happened if 4x11 "If-Then-Else" had followed a different path. There's some not so cheery stuff in here. Just, y'know. Fair warning.


"Hey sweetie. Ya busy?"

Shaw stopped internally cursing the police officer who had just closed the back door of his cop car on her. She was surprised to hear Root's voice, saccharine sweet with that audible smirk.

"A little," Shaw replied quietly, one eyebrow arching in amusement and frustration at Root's timing, already working to jimmy the lock on the handcuffs behind her back . "Skip the verbal foreplay, Root. Why're you calling?"

"Can't a couple of gals take a break from work to catch up?"

The enjoyment was clear in Root's voice, and Shaw couldn't help the little upturn of her mouth at the sound.

"I've been arrested and you're fighting an AI apocalypse, so _no_. We _don't_ have time to catch up," she told Root. She was glad that as she spoke, she managed to successfully settle back into her irritated tone.

"Well, there's no need to be rude."

Shaw knew from experience where this was going. Root liked to treat her like she was some computer program that could be manipulated at will. Or, at the very least, like it was just the cutest, sweetest thing that Shaw got pissed off when Root came onto her repeatedly. Usually, Root's banter wasn't actually all that unwelcome, the snarky replies Shaw gave just made it easier to deflect her advances. But handcuffed in a cruiser while Root was off doing god knew what didn't seem like the best time to flirt.

"I am _not_ having this conversation right now."

"There's no time like the present, Sameen." It seemed like Root wasn't going to take no for answer. "Why're you so afraid to talk about your feelings?"

Shaw exhaled a little laugh through her nose. If Root was going to push, Shaw was going to shove right back.

"Feelings? I'm a sociopath. I don't _have_ feelings," she said. They both knew that while it was true that Shaw was about as far from touchy feely as a person could get, that didn't mean that she didn't feel _something_ in response to Root. This was just how their game worked— Root would come onto Shaw, and Shaw would deflect with a knowing smirk.

"And _I'm_ a reformed killer for hire. We're perfect for each other." Shaw would never admit that she was impressed at how to-the-point Root was being. Usually the taller woman was a little more obtuse. Shaw knew that Root had a thing for her, but now she wondered if maybe she was wrong in thinking that all of the idle teasing and relentless innuendo were largely a way to get a rise out of her. "You're gonna figure that out someday."

" _Root_. If you and I were the _last_ two people on the _face_ of this planet…" Shaw's speech slowed as she focused on the handcuffs behind her back, keeping an eye out for the cop.

"An increasingly plausible scenario given Samaritan's plans," Root interrupted, her voice a little tighter than normal. Shaw rolled her eyes and shook her head, reluctantly giving their conversation a bit more of her attention to make Root less offended or whatever was wrong with her.

" _Fine_. Maybe _someday_ , when Samaritan wipes _everyone_ out…" Success. She'd freed her wrists. But the smile that was threatening to break out on her face wasn't in response to having freed herself. It was there because Shaw was thinking about how the current conversation with Root was going, and how the conversation she was about to propose would go if it ever happened. "…We can talk about it."

One way or another, that talk would be pretty short. Either because Shaw would shut Root down viciously or because they might actually _do_ something about the growing sexual tension between them instead of just making fun of one another.

There was an abrupt, shallow laugh breathed into Shaw's ear canal, and her scalp prickled like an electric current had been applied to her spine. Shaw swallowed hard.

"You're saying 'maybe someday'?" Root's words wavered and lifted. Ok, so making Root's voice do whatever _that_ was turned out to be pretty satisfying. Shaw felt warmth creep up into her face and ears.

"Yeah, sure Root. Maybe someday," Shaw told her, keeping her voice dark, as if Root was a petulant child. She wondered if Root was able to hear the smile in her words anyway. "Is that good enough for ya?"

"Yes, Sameen." Root's voice had shifted, and seemed smaller. Weirdly strained. Shaw didn't recognize that tone, but it was decidedly less pleasant. Then, smaller still, "That's good enough for me."

It would be awkward when they saw each other next, Shaw knew, and she was already planning how she'd undermine any new verbal jabs that Root threw her way.

But her thoughts were interrupted.

A chorus of gunshots came through the call, drowning what might have been a voice crying out.

Shaw sat up straighter in the back seat of the cop car and froze. The other end of the line had gone silent.

"Root?" Shaw asked. She waited, tense, for the other woman to say something. Any second now, Root would quip in her ear— something smug, making fun of the concern in Shaw's voice, or belittling the Samaritan operatives that she'd just dropped with effortless gunshots to their knees.

But the silence grew longer. No response came.

" _Root_ ," Shaw repeated her name. She didn't know what else to say.

And still, there was no reply.

* * *

By the time that Shaw escaped from the cop car and made it to the stock exchange, the place was crawling with police. And not just Samaritan's people. Legitimate cops, too. Even a team of genuine FBI agents. For a while, she watched from a safe distance, waiting for word from Reese or Finch or Fusco. Or Root. She found herself hoping beyond hope that she would hear from Root most of all.

But no one made contact. And John, Harold, and Fusco didn't answer when she called each of them in turn.

She didn't try to call Root. She told herself that it was because their last conversation had been too awkward, and she didn't want Root's flirty little comments about how sweet it was that Shaw _did_ have feelings. Or about how Shaw just couldn't stay away from Root for long. But really, she didn't try to call Root because she was afraid that the other woman wouldn't answer.

Eventually, Shaw decided that she would have to come back later in the night, when there wasn't law enforcement flooding the whole building. Besides, her team mates were probably all safe and sound in hiding now anyway.

She returned to the subway station to look for them, sure that they'd gone back down below the surface of the city to regroup and recap. But she was only greeted by Bear, whining and nosing his empty food dish towards her when she sat down in the subway car, trying to think through the places that they could have gone.

For three hours, there was no word from any of them. She paced around their hideout, wired.

Then, finally, her phone rang.

Fusco.

"What the hell happened? Where are you?" Shaw snapped without greeting him.

"Sameen…" He was using her first name. Root was the only one who regularly used her first name. "I'm really sorry, Sameen."

Blood rushed in her ears, deafening.

center—/center

Those words, 'that's good enough for me,' were seared into Shaw's brain.

There had been a slight shake in Root's final sentence, but Shaw hadn't thought much of the change until it was too late. She'd never pretended to understand why certain things she said or did seemed to be the catalyst that caused Root to go all dewey-eyed and soft, and that's what she'd thought was happening in the moment.

She hadn't known that Root was in danger. Hadn't known that Root was staring down the barrels of nearly a dozen guns.

Hadn't known that a whole squad of Samaritan's people were standing opposite Root in some dark service tunnel. That Finch was trying to run to Root's side when he was gunned down as well. That John was blowing himself up along with Lambert and a handful of other Samaritan operatives.

Hadn't known that losing three fourths of her team would make her feel so lost.

When the Machine called up the payphone in the subway station and started giving her direct orders, Shaw jammed her ear piece back into her ear canal, grabbed the biggest guns she could carry, and listened.

Turned out that Shaw wasn't the only one who wanted revenge.

* * *

It was a full year later by the time that Shaw and the Machine had torn Samaritan apart. Piece by piece. One agent and one line of code at a time.

What use was a team if Shaw could do it all herself?

And then one day Sameen was told that their work was done.

The Machine had gotten a handful of other people to cover the numbers while Shaw waged war, and she hated every one of them for not being Root, Finch, and Reese. Meeting in the new safe houses was hard enough, but when they set up shop in the subway station? Her stomach burned with fury.

So when the Machine told Shaw that she could go if she wanted to, Shaw went.

Left the city and didn't look back.

She needed a distraction and a plan for what to do next. She was a multi-tasker, after all. It had always been one of her strong suits, but now it just made it damn near impossible to turn off the buzz inside of her brain. She was going to have to find something to occupy her mind. Needed some goal to work towards.

And she wanted to screw somebody. Scratch that itch until she was raw. Raw in a different way than the raw she still felt a year after she'd lost the others. Like she'd been sucker punched, turned inside out, and raked over gravel.

So she found Tomas. He was in Sweden for the time being, and she needed a change of scenery. She figured that Stockholm was as good a place as any. He'd found work there and was happy to share it. Shaw took him up on the offer.

Went out on a job with him. Went to a club with him. Went home with him. Ripped into him.

Teeth and hands.

She'd thought his warm body would set her brain chemistry right. She'd been wrong.

When Tomas didn't stem the pain, she turned elsewhere. Everywhere. Anywhere.

Nothing helped.

' _Why doesn't anything help?_ ' she wondered, shoving her feet into her boots and tugging her leather jacket on over her wrinkled shirt. It was her third week of wandering different cities in different countries, going home with men and women whose names she would never remember.

Shaw looked back at the woman sprawled in the bed she'd just left. The pale skin a stark contrast to the scarlet sheets. The stranger was asleep now, or at least pretending to be. Just another failed attempt to pack the wound inside of Sameen so it would stop hemorrhaging. This woman had been good in bed, and gorgeous, with hair that fell in waves around her shoulders and the kind of over-sized eyes that put a person at ease even as they said that she _knew_ you. Those eyes were what had caught Shaw's attention in the first place. Drawn her in. Like maybe this stranger understood what was going wrong inside of her.

It didn't surprise Shaw when the woman told her that she was welcome to stay the night. Even said Shaw could crash in the second bedroom or on the couch in her living room. But Shaw didn't want to stay. Not in bed with this woman, not in her guest room, not on her sofa. She didn't have anywhere to go for the rest of the night, but Shaw still couldn't stand staying there in the woman's apartment.

Because the eyes that had grabbed her attention had done so because they looked like Root's. The brown hair worn loose around the woman's shoulders. The pale, smooth skin. The long legs. It was clear from across the bar where they'd met that the mouth and nose were all wrong, and Shaw had thrown back the rest of her drink as she caught herself thinking ' _Well, no one is perfect_.'

The thought hadn't dismayed her enough at the time to persuade her to stay away from the stranger. But now, limbs heavy and the edge taken off of her rage, Shaw felt unsettled.

' _This isn't Root. Root is dead_.'

Shaw zipped up her jacket and brusquely headed down the poorly lit stairwell of the woman's apartment building and out the front door. Once she stepped onto the narrow sidewalk, she surveyed the dark street. There was no one else around that she could see. She was glad and unsurprised. It was late, she was pretty sure it was a Wednesday night, and there was a sharp, damp wind that whipped between the buildings and chilled her to the bone.

Shoving her fists into her jacket pockets, Shaw arbitrarily picked a direction to walk. She hadn't paid attention to how they'd gotten to the woman's apartment, and it wasn't like it mattered where she went. The only thing that told her that she was even in the same city she'd been earlier were the Catalan flags hanging from balconies that she passed.

She wove through the narrow streets aimlessly, and unexpectedly emerged into a large open area. Beneath the wind, she could hear waves. She crossed the cobblestone, the paved road, and then reached the beach, but didn't stop walking until the ground changed again under her feet. Shifted beneath the soles of her shoes. Wet sand compacting down under her weight.

It wasn't the time of year to be in Barcelona. Early December meant the sea would be frigid, and the weather was drizzly.

Her body moved beyond shivering, turning stiff like she was becoming a block of ice. She had no plan for what to do now. Go back to New York and chase down idiotic men and women who put one another's lives in danger over money or power? What was the point?

Had they really been fighting for _this_? Was _any_ of it worth dying for?

She sat down heavily, crossed her arms on top of her knees, and looked out at the dark sky as the waves wet her clothes. The sea was so cold that it burned her skin and shocked something deep inside of her. She would get hypothermia if she didn't find someplace dry and warm to rest sooner or later. She was probably well on her way to getting frostbite from the water.

She leaned forwards, pressed her forehead to the sleeves of her jacket, and wished for a moment that she could cry.

No tears came, of course. Shaw knew that this was 'sadness', but didn't really know what that meant. Had no idea what a person was supposed to do with this feeling.

She knew that she missed the others. Missed gunfights with Reese at her side, working in tandem. Missed finishing an assignment and Finch's immediate calls to give her another job to do as soon as something new came up.

Missed Root.

Root, who would've teased her until she felt _something_ other than anger.

Who was always satisfied by whatever small acknowledgement Shaw gave that confirmed the feeling— whatever feeling it was that Root had— was mutual. As mutual as it ever _could_ be with Shaw.

Whose final words still burned bright and painful in Shaw's chest. ' _Yes Sameen, that's good enough for me_.'

Root, who had been happy with a promise that she knew Shaw could never keep.


End file.
